tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Mar 10 14:30:00 1999

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Re: Deep structure

I just need to comment that I'm impressed with ter'eS. This 
description is more internally consistent and better thought 
through than my own. This is what I felt, but it was not so 
clearly thought or expressed.

I respect both the analysis and the tone. I hope to take 
inspiration from both.

charghwI' 'utlh

On Wed, 10 Mar 1999 10:13:28 -0800 (PST) Terrence Donnelly 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> I have to agree with charghwI'.  I can't see /targhvaD Qa'Hom vISopmoH/
> as anything but 'I made the targh eat the Qa'Hom'.  It seems to
> exactly parallel the canon /ghaHvaD quHDaj qawmoH/ and the common
> (but non-canon?) /ghaHvaD tlhIngan Hol ghojmoH/.  (Sometimes I find it
> easier in involved threads to simply state my opinion, instead
> of try to reply to specific points from other posts, so here goes.)
> 
> I think two sources of confusion are 1) the idea that a causative
> transitive Klingon verb is ditransitive and 2) how the benefactive
> role of /-vaD/ fits with the use of /-moH/.  The problem with
> ditransitivity is that there are two distinct types of object
> associated with these ditransitives, which we are not clearly
> distinguishing.  The problem with /-vaD/ is that the 
> benefactive doesn't seem related to one of these objects.  
> 
> Basically, I see /-moH/, besides giving the verb a causative meaning,
> as opening up a new noun role to associate with the verb.  I also see 
> noun roles as hierarchical, with subject most common, followed by object.
> An intransitive verb with no suffix has only a subject role. When you 
> add /-moH/ to it, the object role is now available. 
> 
> /bel yaS/ The officer is pleased.
> /yaS belmoH Duj/ The ship pleases the officer.  
> 
> It's true that a particular noun may move from the subject to the
> object role, as /yaS/ did, but the role of subject in general stays
> the same: the one which performs the action of the verb.

While I see this slightly differently, I see that this still 
works by my perspective or yours. I'd say the subject is the one 
doing the action before {-moH} is added and the one causing the 
action after {-moH} is added, and this implies a change in role 
for the nouns, but grammatical analysis is an example of 
modeling. One model is not better than another model until one 
model fails to behave like that which is it modeling while the 
other one succeeds. I don't see either of our models as failing.
 
> With a transitive verb, subject and object roles exist: /Qa'Hom vISop/
> 'I eat a Qa'Hom'.  When /-moH/ is added, another noun role is opened up.
> Since the object role already exists, this noun gets bumped to a new role.
> I don't know the actual name for this role, but I call it the 'ergative 
> object'.  In a simple transitive verb, the subject role indicates the 
> one performing the verb and the object indicates the one acted upon by 
> the verb.  In a causative transitive, the subject becomes the one which 
> compells the ergative object to act upon the regular object. The verb
> is still initiated by the subject, but it now has two components,
> both with their own vectors: the original idea of the action of the 
> original verb, with a direct object, and the added idea of causation, 
> with the added ergative object.

Exactly.
   
> We were pretty stumped for a while, because we didn't seem to
> have any tools to distinguish the direct object from the ergative
> object. Finally, MO gave us the suffix /-vaD/ to mark this, 
> in the /ghaHvaD quHDaj qawmoH/ example. I don't think the two 
> uses of /-vaD/ are that closely related, so it wasn't obvious until MO 
> pointed it out. Maybe in /no' Hol/ there were two different suffixes, 
> whose sounds converged over time.

As I see it, Okrand first explained {-vaD} as benefactor in the 
original grammar section of TKD. He expanded on that to use it 
for "indirect object" in the Addendum grammar section. I see 
this use with {-moH} as an example of {-vaD} marking the 
indirect object, and I see the roles of direct and indirect 
object as being somewhat arbitrary depending upon the finer 
points of meaning of a given verb. Meanwhile, adding {-moH} to a 
verb already with a direct object lends one to consider the 
"ergative" object to be the indirect object, hence appropriate 
for {-vaD}.

> Adding /-moH/ to a verb doesn't change the roles that already exist
> for the unsuffixed verb, it just adds a new one. 

While that is true, it does change which noun is place in each 
role. THAT is what I'm talking about when I talk about changed 
roles. I'm not saying that the nature of the roles change. I'm 
saying something very similar to you, with the adjustment that 
the nouns get moved into the different grammatical positions to 
fit the grammatical function called for by the idea that is 
being expressed.

I doubt I'm saying this as clearly as you, but I'm trying to 
describe whatever difference I can see between our models of 
this grammar.

> With an intransitive
> verb, the subject remains the actor of the verb, but the object role
> is added.  With a transitive verb, the subject and direct object do
> not change roles, but the ergative object role is added.  If the direct
> object is not present, it does not change this relationship. 

It does change which noun would be placed into these roles, 
however. I suspect that we are talking about slightly different 
things when we use the word "roles". You seem to be talking 
about the slots in the grammar. I seem to be talking about the 
things nouns do when they are in those slots.

When {-moH} is added to a stative verb, there is indeed a new 
role and a new function. {bIr HIq} -> {HIq vIbIrmoH}. The 
noun {HIq} was moved (from subject) to a different slot (direct 
object) in order to maintain the same function it originally 
had (being cold). The slot it previously held is not filled by 
an implied {jIH}, which causes it to be cold.

Qa'Hom Sop targh -> targhvaD Qa'Hom vISopmoH.

Now a new slot in the grammar is opened up and all the nouns 
shift. In order to introduce the implied {jIH}, {targh} is moved 
into the indirect object slot.

In the first example, {HIq} moved into a slot which was not just 
casually vacant. With a stative verb, it was a slot that 
otherwise could not be filled. With a verb that COULD fill that 
slot, however, like {Sop}, {targh} moves to a less important 
slot than that of direct object.

The idea here is to minimize the number of nouns that will need 
to be shifted around. The relationship between a verb and its 
direct object is an essential one and to break that relationship 
in order to add a somewhat different kind of object -- an 
ergative object as you put it -- hardly seems best. So, what we 
get is essentially two slightly differing grammars depending on 
the nature of the verb.

If the verb is stative and would not under normal circumstances 
have a direct object at all, if {-moH} is added, it is clearly 
understood that the noun in the direct object position is the 
one doing the action caused by the subject.

If the verb quite normally has an object, it is less confusing 
to put that "ergative object" in the indirect object position 
than the direct object position.

If we hold to these two slightly differing grammars depending 
upon the nature of the verb, then there is no need for 
confusion. Things can be stated clearly.

This interests me specifically because of my ongoing interest in 
understanding the appropriate relationships between specific 
verbs and their appropriate objects. I see this as a 
grammar-level generalizable tool that is on a higher level 
similar to the granular difference between {yIt} and {ghoS} and 
the way one can apparently take a direct object and the other 
can't, even though they both deal with motion, or the difference 
between what we expected {Dub} to do and what we've observed it 
doing.

I want to understand what objects are the right objects for 
specific verbs. Here I see a windfall of appropriate objects 
defined for two whole classes of verbs: intransitive verbs with 
{-moH} and transitive verbs with {-moH}. There is a difference 
between these classes of verbs just as there are differences 
between specific verbs without {-moH}.
 
> /Qa'Hom vISop/ I eat the Qa'Hom
> /targhvaD Qa'Hom vISopmoH/ I make the targh eat the Qa'Hom
> /targhvaD vISopmoH/ I make the targh eat
> /Qa'Hom vISopmoH/ I cause the Qa'Hom to be eaten.
> 
> I can't make any sense out of using /-vaD/ with a causative intransitive.
> It seems unnecessary.  The verb had only a subject, and when /-moH/
> was added and a new noun role opened up, that noun was able to act
> as the object.  There is no other role associated with the verb for
> /-vaD/ to be applied to.  If a noun with /-vaD/ is present, it must
> be understood in it's old benefactive role: 
> 
> /nguv Duj/ The ship is painted.
> /Duj nguvmoH jan/ The device paints the ship.
> /vavwI'vaD Duj nguvmoH jan/ The device paints the ship for my father.
> /vavwI'vaD nguvmoH jan/ The device paints for my father.
> /nguvmoH jan/ The device paints.

Again, {-vaD} is defined both as receiving benefit and as being 
an indirect object, and while the line between these concepts is 
a fuzzy one, they are not quite the same thing.
 
> The interpretation of the roles of the nouns with the verb should
> not change depending on the definition of the verb or on which roles are 
> filled and which aren't. There's no reason to introduce the sort of relativity 
> into the use of /-moH/ that some have been suggesting.

Yes, that is my point, though one phrase doesn't fit what I 
believe I understand. I think that depending upon what I call 
transitivity of the verb root, I do see the nature of these 
positions in grammar as being different. For an intransitive 
verb, the agent of the verb root is in the direct object 
position while the agent of causation is in the subject 
position. With what I call a transitive verb root, the direct 
object function is served by the direct object position, while 
the agent of the root verb is moved to the indirect object 
position and again, the subject is the agent of change.
  
> -- ter'eS

charghwI' 'utlh

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